SUPER COMMITTEE

Toomey: Super Committee Making Progress, but 'Not There Yet'

With the super committee’s deadline to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the budget drawing ever closer, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is “cautiously optimistic” that the group will soon reach a consensus.

Although Toomey said on MSNBC's Morning Joe that the 12 lawmakers are “not quite there yet,” he added that the group is working hard to come up with answers to the nation’s high unemployment numbers and jobless rates.

“There has been progress,” he said on the show on Wednesday. “There are very substantive discussions going on virtually every day.”

But Toomey did not indicate his own willingness to compromise; instead, he articulated the usual GOP talking points--slash regulations, balance the deficit, and, above all, oppose tax increases.

He said that to get Americans back to work, administrators must incentivize businesses to grow. That can’t be done in the current environment of uncertainty: An unsustainable federal deficit and a threat of tax increases across the board.

ADVERTISEMENT

Toomey pointed to the energy business in his home state of Pennsylvania as one industry that is limited by excessive regulation.

“The natural gas we have is a staggering quantity,” he said. “But whether it’s coal or refineries or the natural-gas industry, they’ve been layered with all kinds of new regulations that is making it very, very hard for them to grow this industry.”

Toomey maintained that President Obama's jobs bill has failed, and that the administration must figure out how to provide essential services at a price that people can afford, instead of trying to “conjure up demand from the clear-blue sky.”

“I do think that the combination of unsustainable spending, excessive regulation, and a ridiculously complicated tax code definitely has an accumulative effect on our economy,” he said.